


Pint of Bitter

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Inspector Lynley Mysteries (TV)
Genre: Apologies, Bars and Pubs, Episode Tag, Ficlet, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Grief/Mourning, Limbo, London, Male-Female Friendship, POV Female Character, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Havers asks Lynley for a drink. He accepts. They say some necessary things (and omit some others.)
Relationships: Barbara Havers & Thomas Lynley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Pint of Bitter

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but: d’you fancy a drink?”

He’d looked at her blankly a moment, and then chuckled, acquiescing, and together they walked on into Southwark. Instead of turning along the river, he walked briskly on, past the empty museums and the blank hotels, until they came to a bright bay of windows under a sign with an unusually stylized white hart.

“If you want better architecture or better ale,” he said, “we’ll have to walk further. But this place is free of tourists, at least.”

“Yeah. Yeah, this is fine.” 

He held the door for her; she could feel the warmth of him, grown unfamiliar in recent months. “What’s yours?”

“Half of porter.”

“Any reason for the half?” She shrugged. “Pint, then.” He smiled, a quick tug at the side of his mouth. “I owe you at least that. Pint of porter and mine’s a bitter.”

She sipped cautiously at hers before following him to a far corner of the paneled room, allowing him to usher her into the corner seat.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She knew better than to dismiss the question. She huffed out a breath. “Sure,” she said; but his brow remained furrowed. “Sure, yeah.” She took another sip of her porter. “You know, slightly worried about how accustomed I’ve become to being threatened by murderers, but…”

“I’m sorry, Barbara.”

“For…?”

“Asking you to do the dirty work. Putting you in danger. I shouldn’t have…”

“Sir.” That brought him up short, as it was intended to do. “You — we — had a man under arrest. We’d all but seen him destroying evidence. Lafferty told us about the DNA match. Look, whatever you’re telling yourself, you weren’t dispatching me on some menial errand, you were sending me to have a difficult conversation that would have been more difficult for you, as a family friend.”

Lynley was silent for a moment. “Still,” he said at last; but some of the tension went out of his shoulders.

“All that,” said Havers, “and you made sure I was all right before taking off on a mad chase of a desperate murderer a decade younger than you are. Quite touching, really.”

He smiled. “Is that a dig, Havers?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

She waited until he had drunk half of his pint before speaking again. “I wasn’t sure if you were apologizing for making me an accessory to withholding evidence, or being an idiot and not talking to me for the last six months.”

He met her eyes. “We’ve spoken.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” 

She sat, and nursed her porter, and thought of all the things she should not say. _I worry about you, you idiot. At least after the baby, after she left, you talked to people. If you wanted to shut out the world, fine — but why shut out me? It’s never been like that between us. I’ve been behind your defenses for years. And you behind mine, damn you. I’ve seen you broken before; did you think I’d mind?_

“Yes,” he said again, more heavily. “I do owe you an apology. You… you deserved better of me. As a friend. But…”

She could not quite suppress a smile. “But?”

“But you also deserved not to have to pick up the pieces.” He drained his glass.

“Ah.” She contemplated the surface of the table for a moment. “With respect, sir…”

“Yes, Havers?” She could hear the amusement in his voice; when she looked up, he was regarding her with wry expectation.

“With respect, sir, that is bullshit.” She knew she could not yet say: _Who else is going to do it?_ And perhaps she would never be able to ask him: _Who else has ever done that for you?_ What she did say was: “It’s what friends do.”

“Not quite.” He spoke with gentle seriousness. “It’s what you do, Havers.”

“Oh.” She lifted her shoulders, smiled at him. “Well.” She drank off her porter. “What we do, then.”

“What we do,” he agreed. “Though I’m forced to the conclusion that I don’t deserve you.”

“Well, that’s true enough," she said. "Though I do seem to remember you saving my life and my career once or twice.” 

He saluted her with his empty glass. “What’s that between friends? Another?”

“Why not? but make this one a half.” 

"Just as you like.”

She watched him across the room. He moved a little slowly, a little as though he were still unsure of the world around him; but he mustered half a smile as he handed the glasses across the bar, a more genuine one as he looked back at her. Barbara Havers took a deep breath, and told herself that it was a start.


End file.
